Zamzam ~ 17 April 1941

The Zamzam was sunk on April 17, 1941.
"Grief turned to joy."

In the spring of 1941, before the United States had entered World War II, the passenger ship Zamzam was sunk by a German raider in the South Atlantic. Among the Zamzam's 201 passengers were 142 Americans, most of whom were missionaries en route to Africa. The dramatic sinking and miraculous rescue became headline news in 1941.

Even today the story still captivates interest, especially when original material is discovered. For example, here are pictures of the American Zamzam survivors as they arrived in San Sebastian, Spain, on May 31, 1941. Earlier in the day they had been liberated after being held in German-occupied France for nearly two weeks, and before that they had been prisoners at sea for more than a month. From Spain they traveled to Portugal and eventually back to the United States.

These unique pictures were scanned from the photo album of Mr. Charles Carr, a Red Cross accountant who had been involved in helping the Zamzam survivors travel through Spain in 1941. The pictures were made available to by David Ford, a collector of World War II era photographs.

The Zamzam Story - Introduction

Found at www.dren.us / eleander2@cox.net

It was a cold night in March, 1941, when the passenger ship Zamzam slowly pulled away from her berth at Hoboken, New Jersey, and glided past the lighted Statue of Liberty. As she headed toward the open sea, many of her 201 passengers gathered on deck and spontaneously began singing Christian hymns. With hymn after hymn filling the crisp night air, the Zamzam began her final voyage.

Although World War II had begun, the war did not yet include the United States. The 142 Americans on the Zamzam felt no great danger. For one thing, the Zamzam had been promoted as a neutral ship, owned by Egypt. Furthermore, her unusual route suggested safety. To avoid war zones, the Zamzam would be traveling south by way of Trinidad Island; then make a stop at Brazil's coastal port of Recife; next follow a diagonal course across the South Atlantic to Capetown on the southern tip of Africa; then steam up Africa's east coast to Mombasa, Kenya; and finally head back to home port in Alexandria, Egypt.

The Zamzam's passenger list was rather unusual, too. The largest category was comprised of 144 missionaries, representing 20 Protestant denominations and also including 17 Catholic priests and teaching brothers. Another distinct group was the 24 members of the British-American Ambulance Corp, en route to North Africa for humanitarian purposes and bringing with them ambulances and other equipment. A third group was the six tobacconists from Wilson, North Carolina, headed for Southern Rhodesia. The remaining passengers were various businessmen or eager family members traveling to be reunited with loved ones in Africa. Among the varied other passengers were David E. Scherman, photographer for Life magazine, and Charles J.V. Murphy, editor of Fortune magazine. En route to Africa on assignment, they had boarded the Zamzam at Recife, Brazil.

Not to be overlooked in this unusual mix of passengers is the fact that it included 33 children, some only babes and toddlers. Five of the women were pregnant. Indeed, the Zamzam's passengers were not the ordinary. As for her crew, they were mostly Egyptian, headed by British officers.

With an air of eagerness and confidence, the Zamzam's crew and passengers had sailed south from the New York area that night of March 20, 1941. A few days later, however, innocence was shattered and hope was diminished as portholes and glass surfaces to the outside of the ship were painted black. In addition, no light in any form was to be allowed on deck, not even to light a cigarette. The Zamzam was now traveling in strictest black-out.

No amount of protests by the passengers could undo this new and frightening reality. Maybe the Zamzam was not such a safe, neutral ship, after all. For some, talk turned to practical measures of readiness in case the Zamzam was attacked. Even children made plans. The older boys, for example, figured out how they would rescue the chocolate candy bars in the commissary. Generally, it can be said that traveling in black-out deepened a sense of trust in God, knowing He has promised to be with His children even in the deep waters and dark moments of life.

The Atlantis
Photo taken by Life magazine.

And so, in total darkness, as if hiding from an enemy, the Zamzam left Recife, Brazil, on April 9, 1941, and began the long south-easterly voyage across the South Atlantic Ocean. Little did the Zamzam officers know that the Germans had been watching, lurking in the waters nearby, waiting for the right moment to attack.

That moment arrived at dawn on April 17 when the notorious German raider Atlantis, using the name Tamesis, attacked the Zamzam.

Click HERE to continue reading ...

Abosso ~ 29 Oct 1942

Caribou ~ 14 October 1942

Found at www.heritage.nf.ca

Sinking of the Caribou

The year 1942 was a bad year for shipping off the east coast of North America. With the German declaration of war on the United States shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in December 1941, the gloves came off. Admiral Karl Dönitz, the head of the U-boat arm, had long planned for an assault on North America, but had been held back by Hitler’s insistence that American ships were not to be attacked. With the entry of the United States into the war, this restriction was lifted. Dönitz unleashed Operation Paukenschlag on January 12, 1942, when Reinhard Hardegan’s U-123 sank the British steamer Cyclops approximately 100 miles southeast of Cape Sable, Nova Scotia.

SS Caribou, ca. 1920s - 1940s

The North Sydney to Port-aux-Basques passenger ferry SS Caribou was sunk by the German submarine U-69 on 14 October 1942.

Photographer unknown. Reproduced by permission of Archives and Special Collections (Coll. 115 16.07.002), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL.

Over the next few months U-boats sank a total of 44 ships in Canadian waters with the loss of only two U-boats. The Gulf of St. Lawrence was found to be the richest hunting ground and during what became known as the Battle of the St. Lawrence, U-boats attacked seven convoys, sank 20 merchantmen, a loaded troopship, and two Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) warships. The pièce de résistance, so far as domestic impact was concerned, was the sinking of the Sydney to Port aux Basques passenger ferry SS Caribou by U-69 on the night of October 13/14, with the loss of 136 people including 10 children.

U-69 and the Sinking of the SS Carolus

U-69, under the command of Kapitän-Leutnant Ulrich Gräf, entered the Gulf of St. Lawrence through the Cabot Strait on September 30, 1942. Finding no targets, he cruised up the St. Lawrence River and on the night of 8/9 October sighted the seven-ship, Labrador to Quebec convoy, NL-9. Despite the presence of three escorting corvettes, Gräf sank the 2245-ton steamship SS Carolus with the loss of 12 of her crew. This sinking, a mere 275 kilometres from Quebec City, caused an uproar in both Quebec and Ottawa. However, it would be nothing compared to the distress caused by the sinking of the Caribou a few nights later.

October 13, 1942
The Sydney to Port aux Basques ferry SS Caribou left Sydney at approximately 9:30 p.m., on October 13, 1942. On board were 73 civilians, including 11 children, and 118 military personnel, plus a crew of 46. Just before departure, the Caribou’s master, Captain Benjamin Tavenor, ordered all passengers on deck to familiarize themselves with the lifeboat stations. Both he and his crew knew of the danger of U-boat attack – on the previous trip, the Caribou’s escort had attacked a contact, but without success. This might have been U-106, which had attacked a Sydney to Corner Brook convoy nine hours later.

Escorting the Caribou on this trip was the RCN minesweeper, HMCS Grandmere. According to her log, the night was very dark with no moon. Grandmere’s skipper, Lt. James Cuthbert, was unhappy about both the amount of smoke the Caribou was making and his screening position off the Caribou’s stern, which was in accordance with British naval procedures for a single escort. Cuthbert believed the best place for Grandmere to be was in front of the Caribou, not behind, as Western Approaches Convoy Instructions advised. He felt he would be better able to detect the sound of a lurking U-boat if he had a clear field in front to probe. He was correct, for in Caribou’s path lay the U-69.

The Attack
Gräf had actually been searching for a three-ship grain convoy heading for Montreal when at 3:21 a.m. he spotted the Caribou “belching heavy smoke” about 60 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland. He misidentified the 2222-ton Rotterdam-built Caribou and the 670-ton Grandmere as a 6500-ton passenger freighter and a “two-stack destroyer.” At 3:40 a.m., according to Grandmere’s log, a lone torpedo hit the Caribou on her starboard side. Pandemonium ensued as passengers, thrown from their bunks by the explosion rushed topside to the lifeboat stations. For some reason, several families had been accommodated in separate cabins and now sought each other in the confusion. In addition, several lifeboats and rafts had either been destroyed in the explosion or could not be launched. As a result, many passengers were forced to jump overboard into the cold water.

Assistance from the HMCS Grandmere
Meanwhile, Grandmere had spotted U-69 in the dark and turned to ram. Gräf, still under the impression he was facing a “destroyer” rather than a minesweeper, crash dived. As Grandmere passed over the swirl left by the submerged submarine, Lt. Cuthbert fired a diamond pattern of six depth charges. Gräf, meanwhile, headed for the sounds of the sinking Caribou, knowing that the survivors left floating on the surface would inhibit Grandmere from launching another attack. However, U-69’s manoeuvre went unnoticed by Grandmere and Cuthbert dropped another pattern of three charges set for 500 feet. Gräf fired a Bold, an asdic decoy, and slowly left the area.

Survivors
At 6:30 a.m. Grandmere gave up the hunt and started to pick up survivors. They were too few. Of the 237 people aboard the Caribou when she left North Sydney, 136 had perished. Fifty-seven were military personnel and 49 were civilians. Fifteen-month-old Leonard Shiers of Halifax was the only one of 11 children to survive the sinking. Of the 46-man crew, mostly Newfoundlanders, only 15 remained. Five families suffered particularly heavy losses: the Tappers (5 dead), the Toppers (4), the Allens (3), the Tavernors (the captain and his two sons), and the Skinners (3). The press truthfully reported that “Many Families [were] Wiped Out.”

Survivors of the SS Caribou, 14 October 1942

Unidentified survivors of the SS Caribou, which sank off the coast of Newfoundland on 14 October 1942 after being torpedoed by a German submarine. Of the 237 people on board, only 101 survived.

Photographer unknown. Reproduced by permission of Archives and Special Collections (Coll. 115 16.07.034), Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of Newfoundland, St. John's, NL.

News of the Attack Reaches the Island
News of the sinking sparked much outrage as victims’ friends and families, and the populace at large, condemned the Nazis for targeting a passenger ferry. An editorialist with The Royalist newspaper in St. John’s wrote that the sinking “was such a useless crime from the point of view of warfare. It will have no effect upon the course of the war except to steel our resolve that the Nazi blot on humanity must be eliminated from our world.” As bodies were recovered, the burials started. The Channel/Port aux Basques area was the worst hit as many crew members of the Caribou were local men. A funeral on October 18 for six victims was attended by hundreds of mourners, and a procession that followed the bodies to the grave sites reportedly measured two kilometres long.

The Burgeo took over the Caribou’s former route after the sinking, but eliminated night time sailings. To further reduce any possibility of attack, the Canadian navy ordered the ferry’s escort to navigate a zig-zag path in front of the vessel rather than follow from behind.

The Attack on the Rose Castle
The U-69, meanwhile, remained hidden in Newfoundland waters, and on October 20, attacked the ore carrier Rose Castle traveling to Bell Island from Sydney. This time the torpedo did not explode and the vessel escaped unharmed. The U-boat, out of torpedoes, headed for home and was eventually sunk the next February by the British destroyer HMS Viscount while attacking a convoy east of Newfoundland. All 46 of the U-69’s crew were killed in the attack.

The Strickland Story

The following narrative was written by a survivor of the Sydney to Port aux Basques passenger ferry SS Caribou, which sunk in the early hours of 14 October 1942 after being hit by a German torpedo. The text originally appeared in H. Thornhill’s It Happened in October: The Tragic Sinking of the SS Caribou.

THE TALE OF MR. WILLIAM STRICKLAND and the loss of his wife and two children, Hobby and Nora, who were drowned on the S.S. Caribou.

"We sailed from North Sydney pier around 9 o’clock in the night. With me was my wife and two children. It was a very pleasant night at sea with a starlight sky. We occupied room No. 23 and soon after leaving my wife and children retired comfortably for the night and were soon fast asleep. I decided that I too would turn in.
   I slept soundly until late in the morning which [sic] I awoke and got out of my berth. Realizing we were getting near Port Aux Basques, I was going to put on my shoes when I was shocked by a terrific explosion. I said to my wife, Gertie, “My God, we are torpedoed!” and then I told her to take the baby while I picked up Hobby, our eldest child. I also caught hold of my two life belts and opening the door, I made an effort to get on deck but the lights went out and everything was in pitch darkness except for a tiny dim light near the saloon.
   We made our way for the starboard side and on arriving there we found a boat with about four men in it. Taking my child Hobby, I tossed her down aboard of the boat where my wife and baby were. As I began to get down myself, the life-boat capsized and I heard my wife cry out, “Hobby is gone.”
   By that time, water was pouring over the deck of the ship and she was sinking fast. I cried out to someone to take my baby while I try and get up myself which they did and I finally managed to climb in myself. My wife, too managed to reach top deck and also another lady. There was nothing in sight available to get into. All I could hear was the cries and screams for help as the passengers seemed to be a terrible state of mind.
   My wife screamed for her baby then grasped my hand and said, “Bill, we will go together.” By then, the water was to our knees and was still rising. A sea broke over us and we were separated from one another. From that moment, I never saw my wife again. The two lifebelts that I tried so hard to hold fast to were lost when I was trying to save my child.
   As far as I can judge, I was caught in the suction of the ship and could not break clear. I went round and round with the current before I was able to break clear. I caught hold of a piece of debris about 4 feet long and had to let go of it again.
   I went under water again and took in a considerable amount of water. It was a matter of life and death and a bitter struggle before I reached the surface again. When I did, I glanced ahead of me and I saw an object on the water and immediately began to swim toward it. It was a raft. I was the only one on it until about 15 minutes later when I caught sight of a woman swimming toward the same raft. I helped her on board and then she burst out in tears as she told me that her baby was lost. I tried to comfort her as I told her how I had lost my wife and two children.
   After this five more survivors made their appearance, 4 men and a girl. We were on the lookout for the corvette and also tried to see if we could rescue any more people from the perils of the sea.
   The girl we rescued was the first to see the rescue ship appearing in the distance. We were sitting with our feet in water for about 4 and one-half hours and were pretty cold when the rescue ship picked us up. We were brought to North Sydney.
   Whoever may be privileged to read this tale can imagine what it means to be blasted from a cosy state room to a cold, icy water at 3 a.m. in the morning and lose all that memories hold dear."

(Signed)
Wm. Strickland,
North Sydney.
Native of Rose Blanche,
Newfoundland.

Click HERE for details of 136 people who were on board.

VIDEO ~ SS Caribou

Ceramic ~ 8 December 1942

Edited and expanded from www.ahoy.tk-jk.net

SS Ceramic, a victim of U-515 on the 7th. of December 1942 

Ceramic had a long history, she had been built and delivered by Harland and Wolff Ltd of Belfast in 1913 for her then owners White Star Line Ltd. Her length: 655.1 feet, beam: 69.4 feet and draught: 43.8 feet, giving her a gross tonnage of 18,481 tons. Her speed, 15knots, powered by three triple expansion and low powered turbines all geared to a central shaft.

Ceramic when sailing under White Star colours

The SS Ceramic plied the UK/Australia route via the Cape of Good Hope. With her tall masts, she reportedly held the record for the highest masts that could still clear the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In 1914, with the declaration of WWI, she was requisitioned as a Trooper for the Australian Expeditionary Force.

Near misses by torpedoes.
Twice during WW1, the ship escaped being torpedoed, once in the Mediterranean in 1916, and a second time in 1917, in the English Channel.

Change of Ownership.
Cunard - White Star Ltd. was formed in 1934 to aid the Queen Mary project, and Shaw Saville and Albion acquired the Australian assets of the old White Star line, and these included Ceramic.

Reconstruction of the ship by her original builders.
In 1935, Harland and Wolff reconstructed this vessel, her new tonnage a shade heavier at 18,713 gross, and a slightly improved speed of 16 knots. The new design catered for 480 cabin class passengers, and her "Veranda Cafe" aft, dates from this rework.

WWII.
With the advent of WWII, the Ceramic once again donned Troopship colours, for service in that capacity out of Australia, but she still carried some passengers.

Collision.
On the 11th of August 1940 the ship was involved in a collision with SS Testbank, and was towed into Walwis Bay in SW Africa for temporary repairs.

Ceramic on a cigarette card.

1942.
On the 23rd of November 1942, Ceramic, under the command of Captain Elford, cleared the Mersey River at Liverpool, and set off for St. Helena, Durban, and Sydney. She had on board, 378 passengers, which included 12 children, 244 Naval/Military/Nursing personnel and 278 crew (in that number were 33 Australian seamen). In her holds were stowed 12,362 tons of general cargo and government stores.

That fateful day of the 7th of December 1942.

(NOTE: In England, the loss of Ceramic is recorded as the 6th of December 1942. It's reporting this loss by English time rather than the local time obtaining at the time which made the sinking on the 7th of December 1942.)

When steaming west of the Azores on the 7th of December 1942 the ship was sighted and then stalked by the German U-Boat U-515 (Captain Werner Henke). The weather was cold with rough seas. Henke struck with one torpedo about 8:00 p.m. Several minutes after this explosion, two more hits were made in the engine room.

The stricken ship stopped and darkness descended on board. 8 life boats, all crammed full, were lowered and got away from the sinking ship but she did not go down immediately. Just prior to midnight, two more torpedoes were released, to break the ship in two, and in another 10 seconds she was gone.

By now it was raining to make the life of the survivors even more miserable and the sea was very rough, with the life boats in danger of being swamped by the rising waves. By 8:00 a.m. the next morning, a Force 10 gale was blowing, and lifeboats were capsizing. Many of the survivors found themselves battling it out with huge seas, supported only by their life jackets.

About noon, the U-515 returned to the tragic scene and surfaced close to a group of survivors who thought rescue was at hand. Sadly no ... two German sailors threw a line to one man, Eric Monday of the Royal Engineers. He was hauled aboard to become a Prisoner of War and to be interrogated. He wound up in Stalag 8B in Upper Silesia, to remain imprisoned until his final release when WWII came to an end. Apparently U-Boat Command had ordered Henke to return to the scene of the sinking, in order to try and pick up the ship's captain to ascertain Ceramic's destination.

U-515 sailed away, leaving 655 of the ship's company to perish. Eric Monday her sole survivor.

Fate of U-515 and her Captain.

In April 1944, American warships caught up with and sank U-515. Captain Werner Henke, who had already sunk 26 ships, was shot two months later trying to escape from a prison camp in Virginia, though from the way he calmly started to climb the fence in broad daylight in full view of the guards and refuses an order to stop suggests that he was committing suicide to avoid being tried as a war criminal over the Ceramic disaster. Royal Engineer Eric Monday, the only passenger rescued from the sinking, would survive the war in a German POW camp. 

Read article published about Werner Henke on AHOY.

Recording the names of those who perished in Ceramic.
All the Service personnel have their names recorded on the Brookwood War Memorial in Surrey England. The Civilian War Dead Register names all the civilian passengers. The Merchant Navy Personnel have their names recorded on the Tower Hill Memorial in London. The 33 Australian Seamen in Ceramic's crew are recorded on the Australian Merchant Seamen's Memorial in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

Click HERE for details of 656 people who were on board.

Click HERE for more photos.

Fiume ~ 24 September 1942

The Fiume was a small Italian passenger steamer sunk by the Greek submarine Nereus on September 24, 1942 while sailing from Rhodes to Symi. The ship sank in less than 30 seconds, taking 214 of the 287 passengers and crew down with her. No further information has been found.

Lady Hawkins ~ 19 January 1942

The RMS Lady Hawkins was a steam turbine ocean liner. She was one of a class of five sister ships popularly known as "Lady Boats" that Cammell Laird of Birkenhead, England built in 1928 and 1929 for the Canadian National Steamship Company (CNS). The five vessels were Royal Mail Ships that CN operated from Halifax, Nova Scotia and the Caribbean via Bermuda.

In January 1942 Lady Hawkins sailed from Montreal for Bermuda and the Caribbean. She called at Halifax and Boston, and by the time she left Boston she was carrying 2,908 tons of general cargo and 213 passengers as well as her complement of 107 officers, crew and DEMS gunners. At least 53 of her passengers were Royal Navy and RNVR personnel, and at least another 55 were civilians, including at least 15 from the British West Indies and four from the United States.

On the morning of January 19, 1942 the ship was sailing unescorted about 150 nautical miles off  Cape Hatteras, taking a zigzag course to make her more difficult to hit, when at 0743 hrs U-66 commanded by Korvettenkapitän Robert-Richard Zapp hit her with two stern-launched torpedoes. The liner sank in about 30 minutes.

Three of her six lifeboats were damaged, but the other three were launched. One was commanded by her Chief Officer. It had capacity for 63 people but managed to embark 76 survivors. Its occupants could hear more people in the water, but could neither see them in the dark nor take them aboard the overcrowded boat if they had found them.

The boat had no radio transmitter and very limited rations of drinking water, ship's biscuit and condensed milk. It shipped water and needed constant baling, but it had a mast, sail and oars and Chief Officer Percy Kelly set a course west toward the U.S. Atlantic coast sea lanes and land. 

The boat was at sea for five days, in which time five of its occupants died. Then the survivors sighted the U.S. Army troop ship USAT Coamo and signaled her with a flashlight. Coamo‍ '​s Master misread the flashes as an enemy submarine preparing to attack, and was going to continue without stopping. It was only when the survivors shone the light on the boat's sail that he correctly understood their signal. Coamo rescued the boat's 71 surviving occupants, landing them at San Juan, Puerto Rico on January 28.

Of the three lifeboats launched, only Chief Officer Kelly's was found. Including the five who died in that boat, a total of 251 people from Lady Hawkins were lost. They were her Master Huntly Giffen, 85 of her crew, one DEMS gunner and 164 of her passengers, two of whom were Distressed British Seamen (i.e. survivors from previous sinkings). The 71 survivors whom Coamo rescued were Percy Kelly, 21 crew and 49 passengers.

Click HERE for details of 207 people who were on board.